Projects
Workshop elements that can be incorporated to your tailor made CPD event.
Social Inclusion
We have devised a training for teachers, specialists and non-specialists alike, that may help them to make lessons more accessible to all pupils enabling them to develop the social skills group music-making can provide. The training consists of teaching content and strategies that can enhance teaching, engage pupils and foster inclusion in classrooms. These activities range from making music with sounds using technology to body percussion. These activities are chosen because children need not have any previous knowledge or experience to successfully attain the learning steps, therefore, creating a level playing field in learning. Furthermore, these activities require students to listen carefully to their environment and to each other and work in harmony whilst being fun and rewarding.
Body Percussion
Body percussion is all about making sounds with our bodies and the exploration of their musical value. Our body can become a readily available acoustic, rhythmic, dynamic instrument (Colomino et al, 2014). Body percussion is also very accessible as it requires no specialist music resources or the environment. Pupils with no prior experiences can jump right into discovery and composition.
Popular body percussion activities include 'Rainforest', 'Don't clap this one back' and 'Pass the beat around the room'.
Listening Scaffolding
Teachers regularly expect their pupils to listen to music or sounds. However, often pupils find it difficult to relate to what they listen and do struggle with the listening process. Listening has been described as a creative process (Kratus 2017) and part of a composition process (Holland 2016).
We suggest that teachers can easily scaffold the listening process by the following four steps:
Sit still and listen
Think about the sound/music
Link to musical terms
Respond (talk, draw, imitate, perform, compose…)
In our workshop, we demonstrate the techniques and strategies that can enhance listening skills.
Soundwalk
Going for a walk, listening to all sounds around you. Taking in how the environment sounds. Being aware of the music within each sound. Why could this be a good thing to do with a school class?
People’s listening abilities have been slowly deteriorating with the advancement of visual culture, technology and noise pollution (Schafer, 1977). With this project, you will help your pupils to engage with their environment in a musical way without any need for prior knowledge or advanced musicality. Recent research has shown that soundwalks are ‘an inspirational tool that allows the listener to deepen their relationship, knowledge and perception of a particular environment’ (Holland, 2016, p.74).
This project would suit any primary or secondary school class. All you need is a plan where to go and some strategies of helping your pupils to learn to listen. This we will discuss and share with you in this CPD workshop. We will give you resources to help you prepare your soundwalk and suggest lesson plans that you could follow.